and artisans, they have chosen to live and
work in the deeps of their nation's cultural
history. Brilliantly talented, they devote
themselves not to creating new forms of art,
but to re-creating traditional styles and even
individual masterpieces.
Art Embodies National Spirit
A potter and sculptor of splendid gift named
Toen Murata explained the reason why in
these words: "If the impulse to equal the old
masters ever dies among the new generations
of our artists, then Japan will lose part of her
spirit." It was this new work, the treasure of
the future, that I had come to see.
I saw it in all its brilliance in the weeks I
spent in Kyoto and Nara. It was a gentle ex
perience, in which I was reminded that what
is not said, what is not seen, is often the truest
partofawork ofart.IntheendIfeltIhad
entered into one of those classical Japanese
tales in which character after character is en
countered, speaks, and vanishes. Nothing ex
traordinary happens in such stories, but when
they are over, all is explained.
On this particular morning I had risen
while the moon was still up and had traveled
in its glow across the vast city (236 square
miles-more than half the size of Los Angeles)
in order to hear the chief priest of Daisen-in,
Soen Ozeki, recite his morning sutras. Like
many meaningful things in Japan, Daisen-in,
a jewel of Zen architecture, lies within some
thing else-in this case, a larger temple called
Daitoku-ji.
Priest Ozeki led me over the pine floors,
polished to silken brightness by four centuries
and more of bare feet. The room where he
intended to pray lay beside one of the temple's
principal gardens, examples of the "dry land
scape" style developed by Zen priests. This
stark arrangement of black rocks and white
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